Vision Rising: A Military Sci-Fi Series by L.L. Richman

Author:L.L. Richman [Richman, L.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2023-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

SAWCUTTER

“Sir, incoming,” Dixon said. At a motion from Holden, the sergeant major sent the feed to the room’s speakers.

“Sawblade Actual to Sawcutter,” Matt said. “We’re en route to the refinery.”

“Copy, Actual,” Dixon replied.

On the heels of that transmission came Dee’s voice. “Jigsaw Actual, Sawcutter. Jigsaw is on station. Everything nominal. Beginning our sweep.”

As team leads, Matt and Dee each held the call sign of Actual. The snipers for each respective team would be functioning as overwatch; their designation would be One. Each sapper was Two. Ramon was Three, Amanda Four.

The ship was closing but there was still a good ten seconds of lag. That meant both team leads would receive Dixon’s reply well after their respective reports, which was why the sergeant major didn’t bother responding to the second call. Her reply would suffice for both.

Dixon’s hand swept through her portable holoscreen. “Visuals coming in now, sir.”

The commo had piggybacked a stream of the operators’ cameras onto the outgoing automated traffic information transmitted by the station’s space traffic control. The feed gave the watchers on Cerberus point of view from both the station team and those down at the refinery.

Holden looked over at Dixon. “Put it up on the tank.”

Images began to tile across the screen, organized into two columns. The first was labeled Jigsaw, and represented the team that Dee led. The other, Sawblade, showed the feed from the refinery team.

Matt’s optical implant came online first. The view showed the interior of the station-to-surface shuttle. Matt glanced outside to give those on Cerberus a frame of reference. The shuttle had made it to the moon and was skimming along Triton’s frozen tundra. Matt’s gaze swung to the right; the refinery grew on the horizon as they approached.

The picture jolted as the shuttle pulled to a stop and a jetway accordioned out to attach snugly against the shuttle’s door. The feed followed Matt as he and his team followed the miners through the jetway and into the pressurized safety of the refinery’s front lobby.

The entrance was the only part of Shang Mining that was aboveground. The refinery itself lay beneath Triton’s surface, both for closer proximity to the metal ores that the facility worked, and for protection. The nitrogen ice and bedrock above it functioned as a natural shield against harmful galactic rays and stray meteorites.

They descended, queuing up behind a small crowd of second shift workers who glanced disinterestedly at them, then dismissed them altogether. The security AI remained quiescent as their IDs were scanned. Once the team passed throughe, Matt stepped to one side and stopped so that they could regroup and get the lay of the land.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.